4. Character and Discourse from Pirandello to Fellini: Defining a Countertradition in an Italian Context

Abstract

In his book Rabelais and His World, Mikhail Bakhtin points to the revolution- ary nature of medieval carnival.According to the famous Russian intellectual, carnival is a revolution where kings are decapitated and crowds are crowned.However, more than simply formulating an ideological reading of carnival as actual liberation, I believe that, with the sum of his writings, Bakhtin provides us with a model of interpretation for a mode of discourse-in society and in literature-meant to subvert the monologism of authoritarian discourse.Thus Bakhtin' s renowned study of Dostoevsky's poetics (Problems), for in- stance, can be extremely inspirational in our reading and interpretation of that counter-tradition in narrative as well as dramatic art which, I believe, started in Italy with Pirandello and then developed in contrast to, or rather in critical dialogue with, more traditionally accepted modes of discourse such as tragedy and comedy.The close relationship between carnival and comedy is accurately discussed by Umberto Eco in his article "The Frames of Comic 'Freedom'."Here he states that "comedy and carnival are not instances of real transgression; on the contrary, they represent paramount examples of law reinforcement.They remind us of the existence of the rule" (6).Since the Romantic period, however, many scholars and artists have dealt with and spoken about a mode of discourse which differs from comedy, one variously defined as irony or humor.According to Eco, such discourse varies from comedy primarily be- cause of the differently balanced relationship between rule and violation (7).In his essay on humor, "L'umorismo", Luigi Pirandello defines the comic as the perception of the opposite, while humor is the feeling of the opposite produced by the "special" activity of reflection.Pirandello supports his argu- ment by giving the example of an old woman who smears her face with make up and wears flashy clothes.In comedy, one would simply understand that she is not what a respectable old lady ought to be (and "we" are), and would laugh at her.In humor, one would "see" why the woman masks herself: that is, that she strives to regain at least the appearance of her lost youth in order not to lose her much younger husband.Thus in humor one finds oneself halfway between tragedy and comedy.The laughter of comedy merges with QUADERNI ditalianistica Volume XHl.No. 1, 1992 forceful drive towards transgression, or rather subversion, of the rule, of the Law, and, last but not least, of the frame.According to Pirandello, to unmask the lie, and thus to denounce the fictionality of the frame or at least to challenge its constrictive boundaries both in a social and in a literary text becomes imf)erative for the "umorista."

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